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Talk:Star Crystals
Giovane * Given the strategic nature of the crystals, I'd like to spend some time carrying on negotiations with all three ambassadors for the countries involved. Such negotiations will begin highly discrete with no unnecessary information shared. The intent of the negotiations is to completely avoid another 3 army war. After all, the Starmetal Mine is already under such an agreement, so the crystals from it should be no different. * My intent is to gain a royalty on the crystals, at least half of which I can request in the form of crystals. It will be clear that I wish them for personal and team use, and therefore my draw on actual crystals is likely to be very low. * HOWEVER, there is that small mine adit that we fought the bridge-spirit in. That's where we first found out the explosive nature of crystals. Unless it's existence is common knowledge, or commonly known among the people involved in the Starmetal Mine, I'll hang onto the location as an extra bargaining point to gain the royalty. Spindizzy_Wizard@yahoo.com 22:12, 13 June 2009 (UTC) * To sweeten the deal, and to prove that I'm not a madman, I'd be willing -- if Shimmer agrees to assist -- to give demonstrations of some the uses of the crystals. (1 unit crystal grenade on myself, healed by Shimmer using power from another crystal.) Spindizzy_Wizard@yahoo.com 22:18, 13 June 2009 (UTC) Star Crystal Charging? * Question: In the Brightness and Duration sections for crystals or panes being used for light, there is no indication how long you have to leave the crystal exposed to light to gain that benefit. So, do you have to expose a 1 unit crystal for the same amount of time as a 9 unit crystal, or for nine times the duration for a 1 unit crystal? What is the duration of exposure for a 1 unit crystal or a single unit pane? --Spindizzy_Wizard@yahoo.com 00:11, April 5, 2010 (UTC) * A: Required exposure time is equal to the duration. (Which does mean that purifying a high-unit crystal requires artifical aid.) These are the same times and durations that are needed to contaminate/purify all the elemental crystals with their environment. Note that once a crystal reaches its max duration, it never gets worse. Also, times less than max exposure decrease duration by the same amount. (So if you expose a 1-unit to sunlight for 1 hour, it will glow for 1 hour). Note that all contaminated crystals must be purified before they can absorb sunlight. (edit to add) Crystals must be purified before they can store /element energy/ or mind energy. Once filled with either energy, the crystal remains filled until expended. It's only sunlight-storage that expires over time. --GuardianLurker 18:24, April 6, 2010 (UTC) * Q2: Artificial aid? Such as torches/candles/etc can be used to provide the light that purifies contaminated crystals? ** A2: No, you need sunlight to purify shadow-tainted crystals. (Different elemental crystals purify differently.) Artificial aid means someway of artificially generating sunlight. * Q3: Would it not also suffice to simply leave the crystal exposed to daylight for a sufficiently long time? That is, if a given crystal requires 16 hours exposure to sunlight to purify it of shadow taint, then would leaving it exposed for two full days suffice? ** A3: Well, there's this thing called "nighttime" that kind of interferes with that plan. The exposure must be continuous (both ways, mind). Star Crystals contaminate easily, and clean hard. Contrariwise, some of the other cyrstals contaminate hard, and clean easily (Air Crystals, for instance). --Spindizzy_Wizard@yahoo.com 21:02, April 8, 2010 (UTC) Purification Discussion So just being in the dark is enough to contaminate Star Crystals with shadow? What if they were stored in Giovane's meditation area overnight, where shadow has been purged? I'm not expecting to get a full charge's worth of light from a crystal that's being "slow cleaned" by daily exposure to sunlight; the light gained would be lost overnight. It just seems odd that a crystal would gain shadow taint faster than the sun could purify it. If that's the case, I would expect the entire surface of the world to be heavily shadow tainted and constantly getting worse until there's nothing but shadow taint everywhere. So much so that it no longer matters whether you die in daylight or dark; you're going to become an undead. As far as getting a full light charge into something more than a 3 unit crystal goes, you're right, artificial sunlight would have to be used, which makes that particular use moot. If you've got the crystal and the artificial sunlight, you might as well use the artificial sunlight and save the crystal for something only it can do. Like storing power points for psionics. --Spindizzy_Wizard@yahoo.com 00:23, April 11, 2010 (UTC) Yes, being in the dark is enough to contaminate Star Crystals (remember that the other crystals have different contaminants). As for the purge, hmmmm... ummm.... . Nope, I think you've got me. Yes, that should be sufficient to prevent further contamination. And the crystals don't gain contamination faster than they can be purified - it's exactly as fast. The problem is that when mined, since they were underground, they were fully contaminated. So, over the long term, gains are exactly matched by losses. Note too, that storing them in enclosed containers (like backpacks or pouches) is problematical (if you want sunlight time-shifted). As for "everything's contaminated", you're overstating the case there. Only Star Crystals have that problem - normal material doesn't. Normal material can become shadow-tainted (you've already seen that), but it takes a lot more than just normal darkness. And yes, the crystals are *much* more valuable as power-point stores than flashlights. They were always supposed to be; the flashlight bit is intended as a "flavor benefit", nothing more. Essentially, if you're *careful* you could use "emptied" crystals as a torch or lamp, but the effort required probably isn't worth it. Note too, that this provides a disincentive to completely discharge stored power points - especially from large crystals. GuardianLurker 17:51, April 12, 2010 (UTC) Summary: Star crystals can be purified by sunlight, but crystals that require more than one day's worth of sunlight must be protected by some method (such as storage in a purified area like Giovane's sanctuary), or they will regain shadow taint at the same rate that sunlight cleanses it. Other methods of protecting the crystals from taint while purifying them have not yet been specifically identified, other than the use of artificial sunlight to continue the process despite darkness. Leaving a purified crystal partly charged prevents re-contamination. --Spindizzy_Wizard@yahoo.com 23:12, April 12, 2010 (UTC) Alternatives for Purification So! What alternatives are there? Does my slow charge with spirit energy purify the crystal? I remember that it does, but we've not discussed it here. We figured it out while I was experimenting with the first few crystals we found, seeing what would purify them of shadow. Sunlight worked, but slow charge by spirit energy also worked, and took considerably less time too. It's not charging with power points, so it takes longer than the 10 minutes per unit specified for that process. How about an hour per crystal unit to purify via spirit energy? --Spindizzy_Wizard@yahoo.com 23:12, April 12, 2010 (UTC) Remember that your experiment was with a 1 unit-crystal. Basically, by the time you started meditating with it, it had already been purified. Likewise, Star Crystals actually store Spirit Energy. Charging them with Spirit Energy takes as long as with Power Points. It does result in a glowing crystal, of the same intensity as sunlight, and *that* charge does *not* wear off. Of course, when charged with Spirit Energy, the crystals are also explosive. This is the definitive answer for all crystals: Contamination takes as long as described in the Star Crystal entry. Purifying takes as long as contamination. Storing the crystal in an area of "not-contaminant" results in a halt - both ways. I.e. no less pure, no more contaminated. Crystals can only be purified by absorbing the purifying energy. (For star crystals, this is Sunlight.) Once purified, Crystals can be charged with: * Their elemental energy (which makes them both explosive and glowing); 10 min./unit * Mind Energy (no explosions, no glow); 10 min/unit * Their purifying energy (Sunlight for star crystals); 1 hour * 2^unit Once charged with elemental or mind energy, the crystal cannot be contaminated until it has been completely drained. This may be slightly different than what's already written. If so, this supersedes that. --GuardianLurker 17:08, April 13, 2010 (UTC) Would Glow Panes be considered an artificial supply of sunlight for use in purification work? During daylight, the Star Crystal would be being purified, and the pane would be charging. At night, the pane would be discharging, either continuing purification, or holding contamination at bay, for however long the pane is good for. This would give purification the edge needed to cleanse even large crystals, although it would take much longer than the standard chart. Assuming a 1 unit pane, and a 9 unit crystal, you would gain 2 hours of purification per day, meaning that the 9 unit crystal would be purified by sunlight in approximately 256 days. Larger unit panes give more of an edge, up to the point that a unit crystal can be charged during the day. --Spindizzy_Wizard@yahoo.com 21:23, April 13, 2010 (UTC) Heh. Now that's a dodge I hadn't even thought of - and I had even explictly thought of "time-shifting" daylight, which is exactly what the panes do. So, yep. That works. And actually I think you'll find that you'll want to stage the smaller "aid" crystals, until you get to the 4-unit level. Once that happens, you're at 24-hour charging. -- GuardianLurker 04:40, April 14, 2010 (UTC) The Practicality of Glow Panes Given the purification/contamination discussion above, are glow panes handled differently? It would seem for them to work that they would have to remain un-contaminated. Otherwise you're limited to panes of 1 or 2 units in size. Larger sizes would have difficulty being decontaminated and charged sufficiently to make much of a difference. Interesting point: Does the length of the day change on Darelth like it does here on Earth, or are the day/night cycles exactly balanced at 50% each? Just how long are the days; 32 hours as implied by the 5 unit charging chart? --Spindizzy_Wizard@yahoo.com 23:12, April 12, 2010 (UTC) No, they just have to be purified. Not charged, just at 0 contamination. Think of it as a cycle between full contamination and fully "charged". A: I had been assuming varying, but I just realized that's wrong. For us, seasonal changes are caused by variations in sunlight. In Darelth, they're caused by the Sun's vicinity to one of the Elemental Planes. The days for Darelth are exactly the same length, all year round. And that day is 24 hours long. 12 hours of night, 12 hours of light. A 4-unit crystal cannot store a 24-hour long (1 day) charge. A 5-unit crystal is the smallest that can. Note that a 4-unit crystal *can* store a full 12-hours of sunlight - if it starts from 0 contamination. -- GuardianLurker 17:24, April 13, 2010 (UTC) So... A 32 hour 5 unit Glow Pane is never completely purified by sunlight, but still glows for 12 hours each night? No, that doesn't work, above you state "just at 0 contamination" so sun-glow isn't available until the pane is purified. Instead, a fully charged 32 hour glow pane (or crystal) would grant you 12 hours of sunlight, plus another 20 hours to muck about inside/underground/whatever without the crystal becoming contaminated due to being completely discharged. Once purified, as long as you never leave it for more than 20 cumulative hours in the dark, it will remain (a) purified, (b) glowing, and © available to assist in the purification of other large crystals. Similarly, crystals/panes of 3 units or less are self-purifying and charging when exposed to sunlight. For practical glow panes, it would seem that 3 unit crystals are the maximum possible, and grant 8 hours of reasonable light. Anything larger requires artificial support for purification, but given a normal 12/12 day/light cycle is self sustaining. --Spindizzy_Wizard@yahoo.com 21:52, April 13, 2010 (UTC) Yep, you got it. Mind you, things get a little mucky with morning/evening shadows and really bad storms, but in general, that's right. Keep in mind though that the 32-hour mark (for a fully purified 5-unit) only brings you to 0 purification/contamination. The full cycle would take 64 hours. 0 hour - fully purified. 32 hour - 0 purify/contaminate. 64 hour - fully contaminated. -- GuardianLurker 04:48, April 14, 2010 (UTC) Not sure where the "286/1000" figure is coming from; regardless, the glob is of "average" size, can be cut to any subunit size, and the *total* number of blobs/1000 200. By my calculations, the average size ( (100+(50x2)+(40x3)+...+9)/(100+50+40...+1)) is 2.6, so round it up to 3 units to make things easy. GuardianLurker 17:57, April 16, 2010 (UTC) I figured that if out of the wagonload of 1000 there were X that were suitable for unit crystals, then the remainder 1000-X = Y were 'globs'. I assumed that all of Y was globs because the people doing the loading wouldn't bother to load anything that didn't at least look passable as a glob. That gave me a starting number for the total number of globs. Then I figured out the distribution you were using for the unit crystals, and just overlayed it on the globs. That's what gave me the table. Although your present plans may not allow for it, it is possible that we may need to know the 'real' distribution of pane sizes available in any year's haul, if for no other reason than to set a real price for them. The 'average' size doesn't do that. After all, the fact that there are only TWO globs suitable for creating 9 pane full-daylight windows means your average shlub isn't going to have one. And NO, you can't just join together 9 one pane windows to get a single 9 pane window, you said so yourself. P.S. That'll teach me not to keep my intermediate thoughts and numbers! --Spindizzy_Wizard@yahoo.com 21:11, April 16, 2010 (UTC)